Police spent more than six hours outside the Alfred Smith Houses Wednesday after warrant officers believed there was a man holding kids hostages on June 12, 2013, sources said.
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DNAinfo/Marcus Santos

CHINATOWN — Police and Emergency Service Units descended on a Chinatown apartment building Wednesday morning where they spent more than six hours staking out a home they believed held a suspect and hostages, including kids — only to discover that the man had never been inside that day.

When they got to the apartment, his mother said he wasn't home but refused to open the door, sources said.

Cops on one side of the door spoke with the mother and a teenager on the other and as time ticked by, the situation escalated to the point where the NYPD's hostage-negotiation team was summoned, sources and police on the scene said.

"They wouldn't open the door," an officer at the scene said. "We don't know exactly what the conversation was, but we were in communication with them."

Police believed that their suspect was inside and worried about the safety of the teenagers that definitely were inside.

"He's not home. They didn't answer the door, there was never a barricade," an officer at the scene told assembled press just before 12:30 p.m.

The suspect's mother eventually cracked open the door to take the police warrant but maintained her original position that they were not allowed in and he was not there, sources said. At this point, cops spotted a male who resembled Siders inside, sources said.

Siders is wanted for his role in the high-profile murder of 21-year-old Max Moreno, who had just sold marijuana to a couple when two men barged into his 2 Gold St. apartment and shot him to death.

Wednesday morning's stand-off ended shortly after noon when Siders' mother let cops in, sources and police said. Police cuffed him, and questioned him until they were convinced that he was not their suspect, and released him, sources said.

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